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Visit the UK’s leading indoor agricultural event, with eleven packed halls of the very latest in agricultural machinery and equipment. Now at the NEC, Birmingham this is free to attend and free to park.

Conservative peer Lord Lexden pointed to a ’widespread desire’ to help struggling dairy producers and highlighted the ’nutritional benefits’ of milk.

"In view of the widespread desire to help our milk producers and of the nutritional benefits, has the time come to consider reintroducing compulsory milk in our schools, which helped to make so many of us healthy?" he said.

Responding to the question, education minister Lord Nash claimed he would take the suggestion back for consideration.

"My noble friend reminds me that I must have drunk at least three or four pints of milk a day in those days," he added.

Free school milk was famously abolished in 1971 during Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as education secretary amid a series of government cuts.

During the debate, Lord Nash said: "It is deeply concerning many children seem to come to school not having eaten properly, which cannot help their concentration in school.

"We have funded a Magic Breakfast programme which has resulted in nearly 200 new schools in disadvantaged areas offering breakfast clubs."